by Justin Evans
“John Webster?” Fawkes prompted again.
Andrew shook his head.
Fawkes spun the screen around for Andrew to read. Andrew drew close and peered at the white screen: a page from Google Books. The page showed a scholarly edition of a play. The words in the center of the screen were highlighted yellow, from Fawkes’s search:
VITTORIA The wolf may prey the better.
There were more lines, attributed to other characters with Italian-sounding names. “That’s it!” Andrew cried. “That’s what he said!”
“This,” declared Fawkes, turning the screen back toward himself, “is The White Devil, by John Webster. Jacobean tragedy. I saw this performed once at the Barbican, come to think of it. Nineteen-twenties costume, flappers and white tie. You’re sure you’ve never read this play? Seen it performed?”
“Positive,” said Andrew, excited now. “What is The White Devil? Who is Webster?”
“John Webster is sort of a seventeenth-century Goth. Jacobean, referring to James the First, Queen Elizabeth’s successor. Just after Shakespeare’s time. Webster wrote bloody plays about nasty people. The White Devil, if I have it right, is about a duchess who cheats on her husband and then becomes the scapegoat for a bunch of very nasty cardinals. Your average cardinal, in a Webster play, is about as morally wholesome as a mafioso. She dies in the end. Strangled, I think. Haven’t read it since Oxford.”
“He mentioned cardinals.”
“Who? Your ghost?” Fawkes asked.
“What does it mean?”
“The play?”
“The ghost quoting it.”
“I haven’t a clue,” replied Fawkes, at a loss.
Andrew turned the laptop toward him, scanning the page again. “These lines here . . . Bestow’st upon thy master . . . all that . . . that’s not what the blond boy said. He was reciting something, but,” he continued, crestfallen, “the rest of this doesn’t fit.”
“You said something about spitting whores?”
“Spit and whores, separately.”
“Let’s try spit. Whores are common as dirt in Jacobean tragedy. But spit . . .”
Andrew waited while Fawkes clicked through the pages.
“Wait, what’s that?” Andrew said, catching something.
Fawkes paused.
“There, that’s it!” Andrew pointed at the text on the screen. “Murderess . . . whore . . . those are the lines! Right there!” Fawkes murmured the lines to himself.
“For your names of ‘whore’ and ‘murderess,’
They proceed from you—as if a man should spit
against the wind: the filth returns in ’s face.”
“I’m not crazy!” Andrew said, excited again. “Right? I mean, the play is real. Those words are real!”
“The question is . . .” Fawkes muttered, staring at the screen. “Well, I have a lot of questions.”
Andrew continued poring over the text. “I wonder why he skipped this part here,” he said, pointing to a section on the screen.
Fawkes considered this a moment. Then pointed himself, in turn. “Your ghost said these lines? Terrify babes and The wolf may prey the better? But not these in between?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Those lines are spoken by Vittoria.”
“Who’s she?”
“She’s the slutty duchess I just told you about.” Fawkes felt something pass through him. He turned to Andrew. “You understand, don’t you? You of all people should.”
Andrew shook his head.
“Your ghost was rehearsing.”
“He was an actor?”
“An actor . . . and if he was a young boy, in the Lot, then he was also a student here.”
Andrew nodded.
“So he must have been rehearsing for a school play.” Fawkes sat back in his chair, chewing his nails again. “Just like you.”
RAIN PATTERED ON the paving stones leading to the Vaughan Library. Its slitted windows, like the high windows of a cathedral, glowed in the mist. Andrew held his hat to his head against the rain and wind. It was darkening, after supper. At Fawkes’s urging, Andrew had come here to meet someone helpful. Fawkes had added: Don’t let her scare you. Andrew had not set foot in the Vaughan since that first day. But so many memories of that first day had been blotted out by finding Theo cold and stiff on the hillside. It was one of those old Harrow buildings intended principally, he felt, for postcards and promotional photographs.
He pushed open the heavy carved doors, with their giant brass rings, and entered the long, high-ceilinged room. A Fifth Former manned an information desk, sorting books.
Andrew approached him. “I’m looking for Judith Kahn,” he said. “Um. Dr Kahn?”
The boy’s eyes widened, and without a word he raised a finger and pointed past Andrew.
Andrew turned.
She had come up behind him. The same Dr. Kahn of the Newboys Tour. Her bush of orange hair streaked with grey, her black suit hanging like armor. Scowling.
“You’re late,” she announced. Then without warning she charged past him, across the wide stone tiles in the library—colored deep red, blue, and ivory; great slabs like squares on a giant chessboard. Andrew trotted to catch up.
“Mr. Fawkes,” he protested, “didn’t tell me he’d set a time.”
“I cannot be accountable for what Mr. Fawkes did or didn’t tell you. We keep hours here. We don’t march to the vagaries of poetic inspiration.” She barked this so that it echoed against the beamed roof and the rose windows; and even though he knew it was her library, Andrew found himself cringing at the noise.
“I don’t think he realized . . .”
“Don’t defend him. Piers Fawkes is childish the way all artists are childish. They become enthusiastic over nothing, and invent their own little nothings when there’s not enough nothing at hand. Not the temperament required in an historian, academic, or for that matter any adult human wishing to accomplish things related to real life. And that is my study: real life. I am an archivist. A research librarian. Not a book retriever. When Fawkes goes playing literary historical sleuth, he has all the self-important silliness of a boy playing dress-up in his father’s shoes and hat, or better yet, a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe. He has no idea that what he’s asking is very difficult to get to. And I’ve labored far too long over this collection to go flipping pages at a moment’s notice when Mr. Fawkes gets a twinkle of inspiration. I’m not Google bloody Books,” she boomed, and a half-dozen students lifted their heads to watch Andrew and Dr. Kahn barrel past—then, seeing the speaker, put their heads down again. “That’s where he found his clue, isn’t it?”
Andrew didn’t answer. They came to a carved and studded door at the end of the main reading room. Dr. Kahn pulled a key ring from her pocket and unlocked it. It opened on a dark stairway, headed down. The odor of dust, glue, and stillness wafted up.
“What time is it?” she demanded.
“Uh, seven-thirty,” Andrew answered, surprised.
She reached into the darkness. “Thirty minutes.” He heard the snick of a time-set light being set, followed by the ticking away of seconds. “Light fades the books,” she explained. “We only use what we need. Rupert,” she bellowed back at the Fifth Former at the information desk. “I’ll be in the catacombs.”
Rupert turned to them and raised his fingers to his brow in acknowledgment; but it seemed more of a salute.
Andrew followed Dr. Kahn down the stairs—surprisingly modern metal steps that rang slightly as their feet struck them—and found himself in a long room with a low ceiling and yellow lamps hung at intervals. The space was honeycombed by shelves holding books and document boxes that had been mummified in plastic and laid on their backs.
“These on the left are letters. OH’s,” Dr. Kahn observed as they passed one shelf. Old Harrovians, Andrew translated to himself. “A good section just here. Winston Churchill’s lette
rs to his housemaster. Just after Gallipoli. Completely sentimental. Churchill had a miserable time at Harrow.” She tapped another box. “There’s a manuscript of an early play by Rattigan. Alternate ending.” She grunted. “The vagaries of great men. Their schools know who they really are. We see the sausage being made. Anyway, what you’re looking for is back here.”
She resumed her charge to the back of the room, to a shelf that held a row of leather-bound volumes, big as tombstones. Andrew peered at the titles apprehensively. They were all the same:
HARROW REGISTER.
“Can I look?”
“You may.”
Andrew eased one of the books onto a shallow table and opened it gingerly to the first page.
Head Master
REV. JOSEPH DRURY, D.D.
LIST OF HARROW SCHOOL, OCTOBER 1800
(From a list in the possession of Miss Oxenham)
“Mr. Fawkes tells me you’re interested in the performance of a play,” said Dr. Kahn.
“That’s right.”
Andrew flipped the pages. They were full of entries, all names, accompanied by son of, accomplishments at the school (Monitor, Head Boy), university attended, and inevitably Died, with a corresponding year. Some long lives, some short, all receiving the same terse obituaries in telegram style. He could not resist a sense of wonder—to touch such an old book containing names of the dead—and feel awe at the history and consistency of the place. The eccentric names he had snickered at before arriving at Harrow—Shells, Removes—were here, and in use, as far back as 1800. The house names too. Headmaster’s. Headland. The Lot.
Tower, Charles (The Lot). Son of C. Tower Esq (OH), Weald Hall, Brentwood. Left 1802. Univ. Coll. Oxf, BA, 1805. Author of various religious works and a Tamil grammar. Died Sept. 25, 1825.
“Are you going to tell me which play?” Dr. Kahn interrupted his snooping.
“Sure,” he said. “The White Devil, by Webster.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’re looking for The White Devil, by Webster?”
“I . . .”
“Yes?” Dr. Kahn watched him intently.
“Research,” he said, feebly.
“Of course. And for your research,” she pronounced it the English way, with the emphasis on the second syllable, as if to correct him, “were you planning on reading every page of each one of those volumes?”
“I . . .”
“You’ll need more than thirty minutes.”
Andrew turned back around and assessed the long row of volumes. They stretched out for a century.
“Did Mr. Fawkes make you aware of my title here?” she demanded.
“Title?” Andrew struggled. “Um, are you a dame or something?”
She fixed him with an angry glare. Then her lips tugged, fighting a smile.
“That,” she said, “is perhaps the most ignorant thing anyone has ever asked me in this place. And the competition has been stiff. No, I am not a dame. I am Doctor Judith Kahn.”
Andrew debated whether it would be better to speak or stay silent.
“I am known as Dr. Kahn,” she continued, “because I am a doctor of philosophy. I received a D.Phil. in history. At Cambridge, if that matters.”
Andrew opened his mouth.
She held up a hand. “Don’t say anything else. I’m not sure I could bear it,” she said. “Let me help you.” She waited, then repeated: “I said, Let me help you.”
“Oh,” he said quickly. “Got it. Could you . . . help me? Find it? I’m looking for The White Devil . . .”
“By John Webster, yes yes,” she said; “1804.”
“It was performed in 1804?”
“Its only performance, that I’m aware of, on the school stage.”
“You just . . . know that?”
“I looked it up. That’s what I do,” she said. “And you were not just interested in the play, according to Mr. Fawkes?”
“No. I’m looking for someone who may have acted in it.”
“That, I have not had time to research, despite the urgency of the message from your housemaster. Male or female role?”
“Female,” stammered Andrew. “How did you know to ask?”
“Most plays have male and female roles. That takes no guessing. But if we’re going to look for your student, we must know his year of entry to the school, give or take. And to know his year of entry, we must know how old he was in 1804. And if he played a female role . . .”
“He would have been younger,” finished Andrew. “Before his voice broke.”
“Very good.”
“1803?” suggested Andrew.
“Let’s try it.” And then, to Andrew’s surprise, she smiled.
They stood side by side, flipping through the Harrow Register, scanning the pages for names. Each leaf they turned sent up dust and the whiff of centuries-old paper, thick and brittle as vellum. They carried on for a while. Then, at last, Dr. Kahn pointed.
“There’s our boy.”
HARNESS, JOHN (The Lot). Free Scholar. Northolt, Harrow. Drama: The White Devil, Beggar’s Opera. Left 1807. Died July, 1809.
“How do we know it’s him?” said Andrew.
“The register would only mention a play if the boy had a prominent role. Fawkes told me your boy played the lead.”
Andrew gazed at the entry. “John Harness,” he murmured, staring at the words. “Now I know your name.”
“And much more besides,” interjected Dr. Kahn.
“Like what?”
“You tell me.” She hung back, watching Andrew.
Andrew scanned the entry again. “Uh . . . Northolt, Harrow. He was from around here.”
“Good.”
“He died two years after leaving school.” Andrew thought of the white skin and the sunken eyes. Could that have been the face of a twenty-year-old?
“You’ve missed the two most important words. And you’ve also missed two important words that aren’t here.”
Andrew looked at her, puzzled.
“The two most important words: free scholar. They go to the origin of the school. Harrow was founded as a charity to educate the local poor. Until the masters discovered they could grow wealthy by taking on boarding students. They could overcharge for room and board, let the boys live in squalor, and pocket the proceeds.”
“Teachers did that?”
“Shocking, isn’t it.”
“Squalor,” repeated Andrew. “Like with rats running around the dorms.”
“Vivid—and yes, that’s the idea. The boarders, because they came from outside the immediate vicinity, were called foreigners. They were from all over England. Often titled. Always rich. They subsidized the whole operation. You can imagine how they treated the free scholars.”
“How?” ventured Andrew.
Dr. Kahn lowered her eyes to the page and lightly touched the spot where Harness, John was printed. “Like bloody garbage. They called them town louts. The abuse grew to be so severe . . .”
“They called them bitches and raped them,” uttered Andrew without thinking.
Silence fell then.
“Not far off the mark,” said Dr. Kahn, her eyes boring into him curiously. “I was going to say, the abuse grew to be so severe that in the end, the scholarship funds remained unused. No one wanted them. To enter Harrow as a free scholar was all but a death sentence. John Harness would have been one of the last for some time.”
Andrew recalled the scene he’d witnessed in the prefect’s bath.
“What are the two words that are missing?” he asked after a long pause.
“Look at the other entries,” she prompted.
Andrew scoured them, then called out: “Son of !”
“I will think better of American education after this. Quite right. Son of is missing. When you’re the son of a local tradesman—or worse: the lamplighter, or the dung carter gathering manure for fertilizer—no one gives a damn who your father is. Class differences were less like England today—where one person
shops at Harrods, another at Oxfam—and more like the third world. The rich in comfortable homes, plenty of fuel and food. The poor crowded in tiny houses, family members sleeping in the same bed along with the bedbugs and the vermin. Living on bread and cabbage, everything adulterated to make it last longer, your bread leavened with alum. Pigs in the backyard. Few baths. Clothes patched. Windows sealed shut to keep in the heat—but also keeping in the stench and the soot. Which leads us to another clue on this page: 1809.” She eyed Andrew. “Your Mr. Harness met his demise early. With those conditions, disease killed the lower classes like flies.”
“You can tell a lot from a few words, Dr. Kahn.”
“My father was the Jew assistant financial manager at Harrow his entire career. Assistant to none; he was the only financial manager. But he assisted the governors, and he was humble; thus the title.” The words stung, and held both bitterness and pride. “He kept the school on track financially. Honest and straightforward. I am doing the same, in my way. Accuracy is everything.”
“I can tell.”
He had gone too far in presuming informality. Dr. Kahn recovered her acid air to put him in his place. “I can only help you so much without context, without a research thesis. You and Mr. Fawkes haven’t given me much thus far,” she said, steamed.
Andrew weighed his words. “We’re still developing . . . a research thesis.”
She crossed her arms, unsatisfied. “You’re involved in Fawkes’s play, I’m told?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she continued impatiently, “is this related?”
“Why would it be?”
Her eyes popped. “Why would it be? The play is about Byron, is it not? You see the dates here?”
Andrew glanced at the page: “1807.”
“Byron matriculated in 1804. He would have overlapped with this boy for several years. I thought the two of you were engaged in some meaningful research. Is this all a whim?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then what is this about? Are you acting in Fawkes’s play?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Whom do you play?”
“I’m Byron,” Andrew said.
At that moment they heard a click, and were plunged into blackness. Dr. Kahn stood silent a moment, her eyes adjusting. The timer. Not to worry, I can find my way blind, she was saying. But Andrew had a different reaction. It was as if the feeling had been lodged in his breast for hours, since his visit to Fawkes, since the night before, since he had heard that terrifying drumbeat in his ears and felt the drive and fury of impending violence and had been its terrified and unwilling witness unwilling had he been unwilling to everything the handkerchief around the throat he had submitted to it and all it needed was this little snap to release it. He felt himself grabbing Dr. Kahn’s arm in the darkness. Turn on the light, turn on the light, he repeated, his voice a whisper of panic. All right, she replied. Stay here. He remained a moment, clutching the tabletop to root himself; listened to her footsteps until they rang out on the metal stairs. Then he heard the click of the light and the persistent ticking of the timer. She returned.